Best advice for those wanting to teach English in Thailand

I always seem to be meeting people who would love to come and teach here in Thailand. My first response is to dish out warnings about the difficulties that people may face. Many of those interested have already developed Thai fever though and can't be dissuaded - I was the same.  I made many mistakes on my path to becoming a legitimate teacher, but I also learnt quite a bit. Here are some of my top tips for making the process as pain-free as possible. 

1. Have realistic expectations. Working in Thailand is completely different from coming here on holiday; what was once exotic will soon appear everyday and making a living in a sunny place can be just as difficult as elsewhere. 

2. Don't come here in holiday mode. If you come to Thailand with the intention of staying then it is vital that you take the whole thing seriously.  It is important to quickly develop a normal routine so that you can meet your work commitments. The partying needs to stop, but this does not mean that you can't still have fun and have all the benefits of living in a tropical paradise. 

3. Make sure you appear respectable when around colleagues or students. In Thailand this means not walking around the super-market in your swimming trunks and not falling around drunk in front of your students. It also means not doing anything which would reflect badly on employers. 

4. Teaching is a profession and requires a professional attitude.  It would be wrong to treat it merely a way to extend your holiday. This attitude will reflect in your work. Teaching is a noble profession and you can have an enormous influence on the lives of students; this influence can be good or bad. 

5. Become involved in the ESL community. Listen to the podcasts and read some of  the many blogs and online articles devoted to teaching English as a Second language; become knowledgeable about the different teaching methods and stay up to date.  Check out the Thai teaching related web forums regularly. This knowledge will be impressive at job interviews and more importantly help you develop as a teacher. 

6. Get qualified. It is possible to get work without many qualifications but this is not recommended. For legal work the minimum requirement is usually a degree. Attendance at some type of TEFL course is also usually desired. 

7. Gain some experience in front of students. A TEFL course is good for this. If you have never stood in front of a group of learners before then it can be a traumatic experience. It is best that you have as much support in the early days as possible. 

8. Don't be tempted to submit dodgy certification. Fake degrees are easy to find in Thailand but the consequences for being caught with these are extreme. It is often easy to spot these fake certificates. 

9. Try and have some savings for when the shit hits the fan. Thailand does not have any comfortable social security payments for you to fall back on if things go wrong. Make sure you are not caught with your trousers down. Have at least enough money to make it back to your home country. It is also handy to have a credit card from your home country for emergencies. 

10 Don't just take the first job that comes along. Research and think carefully. Does the job have health insurance? Does it pay you for twelve months of the year? Will it guarantee you a work permit and help you with this? What will your employers expect from you?

First Impressions

I have come to realise that the importance of making a good first impression is not just related to job interviews. It also applies to teaching. What happens during any first lesson I have with a new class can set the tone for months ahead, and the impression created during that first meeting can be extremely difficult to change.

This fact can make teaching very problematic. The chaos that often accompanies the beginning of a new school term means that it can be difficult to always maintain a confident and competent manner. It is vital that the teacher gives this impression from the beginning though. Students are highly skilled at sniffing out weakness in a teacher and don't suffer fools gladly. If the class have decided that they are being baby-sat by a disorganised idiot, it can take a lot to change this opinion.

I remember last year being given a last minute substitution and arriving at a class completely unprepared. I managed to keep the class occupied for the hour, but it was obvious that I was making it up as I went along. I left the class feeling embarrassed by my lackluster performance and feeling relived that at least I wouldn't have to face that particular group again. It turned out thought that I was to inherit this class and it took weeks to change the prevalent attitude of, " her comes Mr confusion". Some of the students continued to see me that way until the end of term.

Now I try and treat these first classes like job interviews.

Little slips of paper that make me want to hide

Most mornings in our staffroom there is a little ritual which I have grown to loathe. It involves little pieces of paper no bigger than bus tickets. These harmless looking slips have the power to completely ruin my day, because written on each one is information about any substitution class that I will be expected to cover. On a bad day I could end up with as many as three of these loathsome notes; this means three extra hours of work that I hadn't been expecting and won't be getting payed for.

Unfortunately it is difficult to avoid developing a negative attitude towards the person bringing the bad news. Last year it was the same teacher all the time who gave out the substitution slips, and I developed a Pavlovian response of inwardly groaning every time she approached me. This task is no longer her responsibility, but the response is so hard-wired inside my mind that I still automatically worry if she walks near my desk. This year the Thai teachers take turns with this task so anybody approaching my desk in the morning raises my suspicion.

I don't begrudge covering classes for sick colleagues. I don't even mind covering when people just fancy taking self-awarded bonus holidays - I occasionally wish that I had the courage to do this. Sometimes , though, it is just difficult to not feel disappointed when you come to work expecting to finish at noon but need to stay till four. There aren't many perks working in a Thai school, so the occasional early finish is always appreciated.

At the moment we are in the middle of the cold and flu season; swine flu mania is also in the air. Many teachers are unable to make it to work so the substitutions will likely become even more and more frequent over the coming weeks. It is tempting to just go hide in the toilet until the lady with the substitution slips has finished her rounds.

What is a native English speaker?

For me the question of whether or not someone is a native speaker is an easy one; it is my mother tongue and any language that I pick up at a later date will not be my native language no matter how much effort I put in to it. My mother tongue was learnt without an internal vocabulary, but any new language depends on my current vocabulary. I think that in Thailand this distinction becomes blurred; for some people native English speaker means being white, for others it means having a certain accent, while for others it means being able to speak English well enough. This would all be irrelevant except for the fact that being seen as a native speaker can not only affect your ability to get a job, but also the pay and conditions once you are in the job.

Many foreign teachers believe that the term 'native speaker' is purely a race issue. They see the tern 'native speaker' as being code for white person. Some of the Filipino teachers point out that their country now has English as an official language so they should be classified as native speakers (perhaps Thailand should follow this example and, rather than spend money on English teachers, just list it as an official language of Thailand). Race does cloud the issue in Thailand, but I feel there is more to it than just this. I don't agree that having a good understanding of English is the same as speaking/understanding it 'like a native'.

There are also those who argue that having a certain accent is what being a native speaker is all about. The Irish and Scots lose out here as many believe these accents are too difficult; American English become the prestige native speaker accent with all others being seen as at most second best. My point here is not to get into the debate about which accent is better, but about the perceptions people have.

I always just considered myself a native English speaker without much thought as to what this actually means; I didn't need to think about it. Living and working in Thailand though has made me question lots of my assumptions. Does native speaker mean your mother tongue? Will my son, who is being brought up with two languages while living in Thailand, be considered a native English speaker?

What exactly is a native English speaker and should it matter?

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Good podcast for ESL teachers

This podcast provides great ideas for ESL teachers. I also find it useful because it keeps me up to date with what other ESL teachers are doing elsewhere in the world. I listen to these podcasts through itunes but you can also download from their website. Here is the link;
http://www.eslteachertalk.com/

Song Club

The activity which my students and I enjoy the most is song club. This is not a required part of the curriculum, but is something that I decided to introduce myself.

One day a week we are given an hour to do what we like with our home-room class. Some teachers use this time for more intellectual pursuits like poetry or math problem solving. but I prefer just having a sing-a-long with the class. It doesn't involve thinking too much (which is considered a crime by most Thais) or being too serious (another heinous crime), but is an easy task which actually leads to good vocabulary acquisition.

Most weeks I pick the songs, but occasionally I allow for the students to pick one. I download the video for each song and print out the lyrics before arriving at class. These are hardly ever songs that I would choose to listen to at home. I found quickly that my favourite type of music ( stuff like the Pixies or Billy Bragg) isn't suitable for ESL students; instead they prefer vomiting inducing stuff like Westlife or other pretty-boy bands. I often feel like a traitor to the music of my youth when I observe the female students "ooing" an "aahing" at my selections.

The most popular song by far is 'My Love' by Westlife and the girls scream when it comes to the solo by the blond blue-eyed guy. I often have the urge to stick up a photo of the now grown-up members of the band who are fighting, and often losing, in the battle against middle-age - I wonder would the girls scream then.

Despite the mostly lousy selection of music it is hard not to enjoy it when the students sing their hearts out. There is something so uplifing to be found when 50 teenagers join as one and lose themselves in the music. It makes the whole thing worthwhile. It is a class that frequently runs over time, because we have all forgot to look at the clock.

Can you teach in Thailand without a degree?

I frequently receive emails, or see questions posed on internet forums, about the possibility of teaching in Thailand without a degree. I always see this as a tricky question to answer.

When I arrived in Thailand eight years ago it was quite easy to pick up work teaching without any kind of degree; there are many people who claim that it is still easy to pick up work without one. The problem is that most of this work is of the illegal variety where the teacher is treated poorly. Working illegally is an expensive game of cat and mouse with the teacher needing to leave Thailand at least every couple of months for a new tourist visa or to get an extension on their 'visiting family' visa (the Non-O as it is less romantically called).

When I first came to Thailand I worked illegally. The teaching agency that employed me had actually promised to get me a work permit, but as time went on it became obvious that it just wasn't going to happen. Even then a degree seemed to be a necessity. I felt like a fraud in the classroom and felt uncomfortable about my legal status. I left the agency and set about getting the qualifications that would allow me to become a 'proper' teacher; I completed my nursing degree and then a Post Graduate Certificate in Education. Four years later I was able to get a work permit and be accepted by the Thai Teacher's Council (TTC).

You still hear stories of people getting a work permit without a degree. I am sure it does happen. People claim that their school has special connections with the TTC. I sometimes wonder though how many of these claims are genuine; after all most people don't like to admit that they are working illegally. People go to extreme lenghts to stay in Thailand. At my current school it is a shock to see how many people are willing to submit obviously dodgy degrees (last year we got one from Oxxford).

My advice to people without a degree is that if they are serious about working in Thailand that they should try and come with the expected qualifications. At least a degree; although the TTC is now saying that it wants applicants to have at least an degree in Education! It is not easy, but delaying their departure for Thailand for a few years will allow them to improve their CV. Thailand isn't going anywhere, is it? Of course this is easy for me to say, and I didn't follow this advice.